Week 51: Argentina

Week 51: For the love of Beef.


The Pumas are in town. The Argentine rugby union team (named after their national animal) will clash with the Wallabies tonight. Were it to be a culinary match-up, it would be a barbeque versus an asado.  Both nations love meat, and the social event created around grilling beef steaks or lamb chops on a gas flame or an open fire matches the national identity of both countries.


Officially known as The Argentine Republic, it is the second largest country on the South American continent (after Brazil), and covers most of the Southern Cone (cono sur).  Whether you want to visit  the tango clubs in La Boca, take a trip to the Iguazu Falls or experience the amazing Perito Moreno Glacier, there is something of interest for everyone in this amazing country (the 8th largest in the world). Whatever your fancy, food will be omnipresent. Mostly beef. Argentines are epic meat eaters - consuming more than their body weight per year. They consider a thick slab of grass-fed sirloin dripping in its own juices to be a birth-right. One president in the 1990s quipped ‘Don’t come to my country if they’re vegetarian.’  The centrality of beef to the Argentine way of life is difficult to overstate. Novels and poems extol the art of cattle ranching and gauchos on the vast pampas. Cafes bulge with diners feasting on steaks washed down with glasses of red wine. At lunchtime, it is still possible to see construction workers cooking meat on makeshift grills.


To discover Argentina, we really had no choice but to eat meat the Argentine way. Our destination was London Porterhouse located on busy Vernon Terrace in the trendy riverfront suburb of Teneriffe 2,5 km north-east of the Brisbane CBD.  Historically Teneriffe gained economic importance for the State of Queensland when wool exports increased. The first of 13 wool stores was built in 1909, the last completed in the 1950's. During WWII  the Teneriffe wharf served as Australia's largest submarine base, with more than 60 subs from allied forces using the facilities. Despite the restaurant’s title (named for its location under the London Woolstore Apartments), the contemporary space boasts a range of dishes heavily influenced by Argentine flavours:


We started with a selection of very tasty Argentine-inspired tapas: Spanish ham, chorizo sausages, prawns, scallops, bread, olives and dips. Then the mains arrived....


Platters of meat, cooked on a parilla ( traditional Argentine grill), and served asado-style satisfied our carnivorous instincts last night: Beef steak, ribs, chicken wings, lamb chops and sausages - the ultimate mixed grill. Balance was provided by a delicious seafood paella served in a paellera (the traditional paella dish), and a mixed seafood platter. This was accompanied by steamed green beans and a mixed salad. The meal would not have been complete without a couple of bottles of Malbec - the de facto flagship grape of Argentina. Which brings us to our first fact:


Argentina has the highest vineyards in the world. With its piercing bright light and dry, thin air,  Malbec grapes have adapted to its conditions. The skins have become thicker as the sunlight became stronger, resulting in bolder tannins and wine with more oomph. More and more vineyards are creeping higher from the hot valley floors to the cooler hills. The result is powerful wines ideal for aging. If Malbec is the king of red wine, then Torrentes must be the queen of white wine in Argentina. It's a love-it-or-leave-it variety......with a taste profile somewhere between Viognier and Gewurtztraminer. But when in Argentina, you simply have to try it.


Yet again, the facts where vast and varied: Louise shared her experience of drinking the native herbal tea, Yerba Mate, which is sipped up through a metal (silver) straw called a bombilla. Martina told us the shocking story of an ex-Miss Argentina who died after plastic surgery on her butt (gluteoplasty or bum lift) in 2009. Finn, on his way to South-America at the end of the year, informed us that the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia, is in Argentina. Cornelia's fact was that the first animated movie was made in Argentina, and Walt Disney is said to have been inspired by Quirino Cristiani, an Argentine filmmaker. My mum told us that the first person to be found guilty by fingerprint evidence was an Argentinian woman who killed her two children in 1892. Argentina became the first country to use fingerprinting as the primary form of identification in criminal records. Football had to feature, and the fiercest football rivalry in Buenos Aires is contested between Boca Juniors and River Plate, whose clubs are a mere 200m apart. This famous local derby "Superclasico" is a passionate, colourful and exciting affair, that reduces grown men to tears, said Andrew. Phil's fact related to the Welsh community in Argentina. In 1865, a huge number of Welsh migrated to Argentina in order to preserve their language and culture away from the English language. Today 72,000 Welsh descendants live in the Chubut province of Patagonia. And Keith told us the capital Buenos Aires derives its name from an image of The Virgin Mary discovered in a trunk in Italy in 1370. This venerated image was named Bonaira, which translates into good air.


There are 11,985 residents who claim Argentine ancestry living in Australia, of whom 1,223 live in Queensland. I am sure they will all be supporting the Pumas in their quest to beat the Wallabies at the test match on The Gold Coast tonight.


Week 51 done....
Final destination? Join us in a couple of weeks for a South-African feast.

Week 50: Hungary

Week 50: A revolving door of flavours.


This week our culinary experience came to life at Eat Street, an Asian style food market on Hamilton Wharf. Musicians, artists, crafters and chefs display their skills under fairy lit allyways surrounded by shipping containers. If I really wanted to, I could easily have cut short our 52 week adventure, and simply have visited Eat Street one Friday evening and covered at least half of our destinations. From Poulet  to Poffertjie, Malaysia to Morocco and every possible Asian flavour in between, Eat Street offers cheap eats to the whole family in a vibrant, colourful and entertaining dining hub on the banks of the Brisbane River.


Our mission was to track down Hungary. We found them nestled between Vietnamese Bahn Mi and Belgium Waffles. Langos Hungarian Food and Snacks serves Hungarian street food easily eaten by hand - so don't expect Goulash, Gulyasleves or Palocleves. Rather indulge in Palacsinta (Transylvanian herb and cheese pancakes), Lepeny ( stuffed pastries) and Langos ( Hungarian fried flat bread with garlic, tomato, onions, sour cream and bacon). The stall was very busy, but the service swift and turnaround quick. This particular precinct of the market featured a performance stage with local musos playing retro-themed music, and a bar serving a variety of bevies, including wines from boutique wineries as far south as the Coonawarra. It was a beautiful evening with clear skies and not a breath of wind. This made outdoor dining even more pleasurable (together with the amazing cityscape views and free parking). The ten of us (all the Browns, Phil, my mum and sister plus three Grevilles) found a cosy corner behind the stage. With cable spools as stools and an astro-turf covered shipping pallet as a table, we shared our platters full of food and buckets full of facts:


Water polo featured prominently: Hungary is considered the world's top power in the history of the game, having won 15 Olympic medals (of which 10 were gold, thank you Nielen). While licking sour-cream from his fingers, Phil related the history of the "Blood in the Water" (Hungarian: melbourne-i vérfürdő, "Blood bath of Melbourne") water polo match at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 between Hungary and The USSR, which left blood pouring from Erin Zador's eye after being punched by Russian player Valentin Prokopov.  Riots between the spectators erupted and chaos ensued. This fact provided the perfect segue for Doeks (tearing another piece of lepeny from the  the platter): Hungary has won Nobel Prizes in every category, except Peace! Sticking to the "water" theme, Louise ( trying to establish the difference between lepeny and palacsinta) had facts about the spa-culture in Hungary. Whether you simply want to relax, or are searching for a gentle cure, Hungary has over 1000 thermal springs, and enough spa accommodation for 300,000 visitors at the same time. The geological features of the Carpathian Basin below Hungary are such that the earth's crust is very thin, so waters rise easily to the surface, hence the abundance of bubbling hot springs. Finn (at this stage indulging in a Hungarian version of a jam filled doughnut) had facts on the 3-dimensional combination puzzle invented by Erno Rubik in 1974. In 1980 it won "Game of the Year" and today over 400 million Rubik Cubes have been sold worldwide - at least 20 of them in different sizes are lying in Boetie's room. Speaking of which...Boet of course analysed the flag and named the national animal: the mythical bird, Turul . Then my mum (now quite comfortable with her unusual surrounds!)  had facts about the Herend Porcelain Manufactory, which specialises in luxury hand painted and gilded fine porcelain. Andrew ( quenching his thirst with a local home brew)  informed us that Hungarian is one of the few European languages that is not part of the Indo-European family. It is an agglutinative language. The Hungarian name for the language is Magyar. The word "Magyar" is also occasionally used as an English word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group, or to the language. ( He also cheekily interjected with some fake facts....did you know the famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt invented Listerine....). And before I forget to mention Keith's fact (again...)...he informed us that goulash is actually a soup, not a stew.


And I had the opportunity to share my passion for one of the world's most famous sweet wines: Tokaji ....Elixir of the Tzars and Wine of Kings. It was Tokaji wine, laced with cyanide that was used in an attempt to assassinate Rasputin. The attempt failed miserably, and the assassins eventually had to resort to the gun.....


Traditional Hungarian cuisine is comfort food. To understand the cuisine, it is important to look into the past. The original nomadic lifestyle is apparent in the abundance of meat and the variety of dishes cooked over an open fire.  Today's Hungarian cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Asiatic components mixed with Germanic, Italian, and Slavic elements. The food of Hungary can be considered a melting pot of the continent, with its own original cuisine from the Magyar people.


There are 69,157 residents who claim Hungarian ancestry. Two waves of migration are responsible for people from Hungary settling in Australia: Post WWII and the Hungarian revolution of 1956 ( hence the drama at the Melbourne Olympics!).

Our penultimate destination is a toss-up between 3 possibilities...you'll have to wait and see where we end up!